


Make Me Whole

by Fanforthefics (StormDancer)



Series: Hockey Tumblr Oneshots [12]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Post-Trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 10:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/Fanforthefics
Summary: It's the All Star game, the kid line is back together two trades and three years of silence later, and everything and nothing is like it was.





	Make Me Whole

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: things you said in front of other people. 
> 
> Unbetaed and basically unedited. I know even less than usual about these characters, so canon issues are especially likely. 
> 
> Don't know anything about anyone, these aren't real people, don't own rights to anything, etc etc. Enjoy!

“It’s great!” Taylor tells the reporter, as bright and enthusiastic as he had been when he was fifteen, when he was twenty. “I’m really looking forward to playing with them again.” He throws one arm around Jordan, on his right, and Ryan, on his leg, tugging them both in. “We’ll have to see if the Kid Line still has that old magic.” 

Taylor’s warm. He always has been. He’s warm, and Ryan’s hand is brushing against Jordan’s back, and Jordan is going to combust. 

“So you’re planning to pick them?” the reporter asks. Like picking teams at the All Star game ever matters. 

Taylor grins. “Of course,” he tells her, like it’s ten years ago. Like they’d spoken in the last three years. “Everyone knows I’ve got dibs.” 

It rolls in Jordan’s stomach. He turns his lips up into a smile and hopes he isn’t going pale. 

“So you’ve kept close, after this long?” the reporter goes on, and Taylor doesn’t hesitate. 

“They’re my best friends,” he says, easy. “Who else would I pick?” 

Jordan can’t be here. Jordan can’t listen to Taylor talk like this. Not after–everything. What they were. What they are. 

Across the room, he spots Mat–an easy excuse. “If you’ve got what you need with him, I’ve got to go.” he tells the reporter, trying to smile. His smile’s never come as easy as Taylor’s. He tugs. 

“Right now?” Taylor asks. He’s got the pout on he always uses when he’s trying to get his way. When he tried to get Jordan to do his laundry, to cook him breakfast, to watch his TV. When he wanted to get Nuge to play video games with him, to come home with them. “Stay a bit.” 

Jordan closes his eyes. “Sorry, teammate stuff.” Taylor’s arm is a vise, always was, but Jordan’s always known how to escape it, too. 

He doesn’t stop by Mat. Doesn’t stop walking until he leaves the room. Doesn’t look back, except for how when he turns to leave the room, he can’t help but see them–leaning into each other; Taylor talking to the reporter still, and Ryan–Ryan looking straight at him. 

Jordan keeps going. Upstairs. His room. Where he can lie back on his bed, look up at the ceiling. It’s a hotel like the hundreds of hotels he’s been in across too many countries. He even got stuck in a room with two queens. Like the hotels back when they’d been the kid line for real, when Jordan’s world hadn’t gone farther than Ryan and Taylor and the ice. They’d been all he needed then. All he wanted. And now–

He had his team, he had friends, he had a city and a life. He didn’t have a letter, but that was okay. He’d never really needed one, not like the other two with their first pick glory and burdens. He had so much, and he was happy, and he’d pretended like there wasn’t a hole that had been ripped out of him with two trades and two gaping silences. He’d thought at least the others had felt the hole too. But no, that was just him. 

He can’t say he’s surprised by the knock. Short, sharp–Nuge. Or the, “Ebs, we know you’re there, open up,” from Taylor. He knows them that well, at least. 

Jordan gets up, opens the door, and stands aside as they push past him. Ryan perches against the desk; Taylor throws himself onto the bed closer to the window, the one Jordan always claimed. Jordan used to be used to that, to Taylor spread across his bed, to all the things he couldn’t want. Now–it’s another thing to dig the hole a little deeper. 

“You ran away,” Taylor accuses. 

Jordan shrugs. “I couldn’t be there,” he says, too honest, but he’s always been stripped bare in front of these two. “I couldn’t hear you say that.” 

“What? That I’m going to pick you? Do you not want me to?” Taylor asks, his brow drawing together. Like he’s hurt. 

Jordan looks over at Ryan, hoping for–something. Ryan’s still watching, though. Calm and quiet, like always. Not giving anything away. Not for the first time, Jordan wonders what’s going on behind those eyes. Wants to lay it out, not to pry, but to take care. But he can’t, and there’s no way behind his expression either. 

“I don’t care who you pick, Taylor,” Jordan says. It’s true. It’s not true. Jordan doesn’t know if he wants Taylor to pick him or not, but he knows he wants one of them. 

“Ebby,” Taylor whines, and they’re twenty two and determined and twenty five and covered in glory and twenty six and sitting on the couch shoving at each other to make someone go get the popcorn even though they all know Ryan’ll break first and–

“Don’t call me that,” Jordan snaps. 

Taylor draws back again. Still hurt. “What? Do I not get to say your name?” 

“Stop pretending that we’re friends!” Jordan yells, and Taylor’s eyes go wide. “Stop pretending that we’ve actually talked! Like we’re what, meeting up on weekends in New York for coffee?” 

Ryan’s head jerks at that. “You aren’t?” he asks. For a second, he sounds young. But Jordan’s too worked up to think about it. 

“You can’t just–waltz in here like the last three years didn’t happen!” 

“We–you’ve always been my best friend, Ebs,” Taylor says, with a guilty look at Ryan. Jordan gets it. Ryan’s Ryan, and he loves him–too much, and not less than Taylor, which is far too much–but once, when asked his best friend, that was Taylor’s spot. It had never made the silence hurt less. 

“Nice way you’ve got of showing it,” Jordan retorts, his fists clenching. God, he–he can’t take this. Taylor’s big earnest eyes, like he expected them to what, be what they were five years ago? Like he could drop Jordan and pick him back up whenever he wanted, like Jordan would be waiting? 

It’s too close to the truth for Jordan to let it be true. “Get out,” he says. Taylor makes that face again. “Fine then,” he tells him, tells them, and yanks the door open. “I’ll go.” 

“No, Jordan–” Taylor lunges, but it’s Ryan who gets there first, a hand on his wrist. 

“Ebs,” he says, all that meaning in the world–and fuck, Jordan’s missed that too, how Ryan could see to the core of him. He’d forgotten how much it hurt. 

“No,” he says, to Ryan and to Taylor and to the whole thing, to the ache in him, and yanks his wrist away. He’ll go hang out in Barzy’s room. They won’t find him there. 

///

Taylor drafts him. And Ryan. No one is surprised. Jordan smiles and says the right things and doesn’t let himself drift closer, into their orbit, because he knows what’ll happen when he ends up there. They seem fine, anyway–laughing and joking and being their normal mischievous selves even though Taylor’s the captain. Maybe they’ve been talking this whole time. Maybe it was only Jordan who got the silence. Maybe they’d finally decided to let him go, that he wasn’t–fuck that, he was good too, he knew that, but–

But he’d had something in him ripped away, and they didn’t seem to notice or feel the same. 

So he skates. He hangs out with the other guys he knows. He pretends he doesn’t notice Ryan’s gaze heavy on him, or how Taylor is constantly on the edge of coming over to where he is. He skates, and it’s still as easy as it had ever been, him and Taylor and Ryan on the line. Apparently leaving hadn’t made him any less oriented to them, pulled unerringly in their directions. 

It can’t last, and he knows it. Knows them. He is surprised, a bit, that it’s not Taylor who breaks first. Instead, it’s a knock on his door again, that sharp sound, and no noise after. 

Jordan sighs. But he’s never not going to open the door. 

“Can I come in?” Ryan asks. Jordan steps aside again, closes the door behind him. 

Ryan doesn’t sit down. He’s not one for nervous energy, but his hands twitch at his sides, as he waits for Jordan to turn. 

“He means well,” he says, like they’re continuing a conversation. 

Maybe they are. “Yeah, well. It’s still a dick move.” 

“Choosing your friends?” 

“Maybe that’s what you guys are.” Jordan crosses the room, to the window. The curtains are open; he can see the parking lot below them. It makes it easier to say what’s dragged out of him next. “Did he talk to you?” 

“When?” 

Jordan rolls his eyes. “When else?” 

“Some.” He doesn’t have to look at Nuge to know he’s shrugged. “Hockey, mainly. Care and keeping of Connor.” Jordan snorts. 

“It’s doesn’t mean he loved you less,” Ryan goes on, and god, he’s always known how to find Jordan’s soft underbelly. 

There’s a woman getting into a grey Altima in the lot. Jordan watches her, very hard. “Right. He didn’t love me less, he just stopped talking to me for three years.” You just stopped talking to me, he doesn’t say, but they both know it’s there. “That’s what friends do.” If they were ever friends. 

A silence. Jordan thinks about looking at him–maybe he’s leaving. Maybe he’s said his piece, and he’s going to go back, and him and Taylor can have their lovefest and Jordan will go back to New York where it’s safe. 

“I didn’t think you’d need me.”

Jordan jerks. It’s not what he expected. “What?” 

“When you got traded.” Jordan can’t help it–he turns. Ryan’s looking at him steadily, but there’s a flush high on his cheeks and his hands are pressed against his thighs–it’s taking something out of him, to say this. “I thought–you’re basically in the same city as Taylor, and it’s always been the two of you. I figured that it would be…easiest, if I took myself out of the equation.” 

“Out of the equation?” Jordan echoes. 

Ryan smiles, wry. “You had Taylor. Or, I thought you would. It’s always been the two of you, you know? Even when you’d let me tag along. It felt…clean. To cut it off with a county between us.” 

Jordan mouths after him, ‘cut it off?’ “So that’s why you just–cut me out? Not Taylor. Just me.” 

“Taylor pushed,” Ryan says, simple as that, and Jordan gets it, he does, but that hurts both ways. Taylor pushed for Ryan. Ryan let Taylor push. “And you’d have figured it out.” 

“Apparently not,” Jordan mutters, but he’s watching Ryan now, head held high but whole body tense, and the problem is–he does. He knows Ryan. He knows how he’d felt sometimes, the third wheel come late to the party, and he knows how he’d sacrifice and he can understand what that means. 

But then he shakes his head, looks down at his hands. That was two years ago. Maybe it had hurt Ryan then. But it's not now. “Okay. Fine. You thought you were being a martyr. It’s fine, or whatever. I absolve you, and all that shit.” 

“Do you?” Ryan asks, and his voice breaks. Jordan lifts his head. Ryan’s watching him, and those walls have cracked, and he’s watching Jordan like–like the sight of him is filling something up. “I can–we can talk?” he asks like a plea, and he’s eighteen and nervous beneath his self-possession and in his twenties and hugging Jordan good-bye too tightly and Jordan has never been able to resist, even when he should. 

“Yeah,” he says, and then somehow Ryan is there and Jordan’s head is buried in his shoulder and he can feel Ryan shaking against him. He’s maybe shaking too. Ryan’s shoulder might be wetter than he’s want to admit. “Just,” he mumbles into Ryan’s shoulder. “Don’t go–don’t stop.” 

“I won’t,” Ryan says, and means I’m sorry. Then he pulls away, just enough that he can look down at Jordan, though his hand is still warm on Jordan’s back. “Do you and Hallsy really not talk at all? I thought–you basically live in the same city.” 

“Hasn’t Taylor said?” Jordan asks, trying not to be bitter. He’s gotten one of them back today, and Ryan’s enough, he always has been. 

Ryan shakes his head. “He doesn’t talk about you.” He presses his lips together, then amends. “We don’t talk about you.” 

Jordan doesn’t let what that statement does to him show. He knows. He starts to pull away, but Ryan doesn’t let him, keeps him close. “I can’t speak for him,” Ryan says, his eyes not leaving Jordan’s. Jordan’s always loved his eyes. “But it would have hurt too much. To hear about how happy you and him were.” 

Part of Jordan wants to smile. The other part says, “He clearly didn’t have that problem.” Then he forces that part down. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about him. Want to get dinner?” 

Ryan grins, that sudden bright grin that’s always settled deep in Jordan’s bones. “Yeah, that’d be great.”  

They go downstairs, chatting about old teammates. It’s easy. Casual. Ryan’s always been easy, in some ways; comprehensible and incomprehensible as he is. 

They’re walking out of the hotel when Taylor walks in. Jordan can’t say that part of him isn’t viciously happy, seeing Taylor freeze, watch them walk past. 

///

Jordan can’t help but stick close to Ryan at the party that evening. He’d feel worse about it if Ryan didn’t end up next to him too the few times he was drawn away, circling close like a cat not wanting to admit where he wanted to be. It’s settling something in Jordan, knowing that Ryan’s steady presence is next to him, shooting him a look when something ridiculous happens and getting a grin back. Maybe he drinks too much, but it’s easy to be happy, with Ryan there. And easy to be on edge, with the knowledge of Taylor on the edge of his awareness. Drinking helps with that. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Ryan announces, getting up from the table they’d been at. He’s clearly not sober either, but if you didn’t know him, he could fake it. “Stay here.” 

“You’ve turned into a mom since I’ve been away,” Jordan retorts, and Ryan laughs as he walks away. Jordan leans back in his seat. All-Star weekend is nice, in its way. To see people. Lots of young guys now. He guesses he’s just old. But there are all the newbies, and–

And Taylor. Taylor, looking too fucking good in his jeans and t-shirt, still tall and handsome and emotive with his loud laugh and his way of taking up too much space in Jordan’s brain. Once, at something like this, Jordan would have been there next to him by right, because that was his spot, next to Taylor. He’d thought that would always be his spot. He hadn’t imagined his best friend would ever fucking cut him off like that. that was a fucking dick move, he decides, and then huh, he’s getting up. 

“You’re a fucking dick, you know that?” he demands of Taylor. Taylor’s eyes go big again, and he glances around. There are other people there. Jordan expects he’d care about that, sometime. “You’re such a fucking asshole, who does that to their best friend?” 

“Ebs,” Taylor laughs. Not his real laugh. He’s twitchy. Not drunk, because drunk Taylor would be in his face right now. “How much have you had?” 

“Enough to know that it’s your fault,” Jordan tells him. “I thought I was your best friend. You don’t fucking do that to your best friend. You don’t abandon them and–”

“Okay, Jordan, let’s go somewhere private, okay?” Taylor interrupts. It’s the mature thing to do, a part of Jordan knows. Since when is Taylor fucking mature? 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jordan snaps, and Taylor catches his wrist when he tries to wave a finger at him. 

“Come on, Ebs,” he insists, and says something to everyone else, and then he’s dragging Jordan away, towards the hall. Jordan stumbles after him. Fucking hell. “Where’s Nuge, anyway? He was taking care of you.” 

“What do you care?” Jordan asks. Now he’s alone with Taylor, and this was a bad idea. He’s drunker than he thought. Taylor’s lips are still so full. Jordan’s thought about kissing them for longer than he can remember, basically. “You left.” 

“I was traded.” 

“I’m not talking about you moving.” Jordan stumbles over nothing, and Taylor catches him, easy as ever. Taylor’s right there. His lips are right there. It’s been so long since he’s been this close. Jordan’s immunity has broken down. 

Taylor’s mouth drops open a little. “Ebby–” he starts, but Jordan’s kissing him already. 

Taylor’s stiff against him, and Jordan will care about that when he’s sober but right now he just falls back, almost trips again. “Now I’ve done that,” he announces. Taylor’s quiet. Taylor’s not quiet often. Jordan looks at him–and he’s just staring at Jordan. “What?” 

“Let’s get you to bed,” Taylor says, and then his arm is around Jordan. 

Jordan tries to tug away. “You don’t get to–”

“Come on, Jordan,” Ryan says, appearing from somewhere, and and Jordan goes. 

They’re in the elevator. Jordan finds himself leaning against Taylor even though he doesn’t want to. Taylor’s arm is heavy on his shoulder, and Ryan’s pressed against his other side. He can see them in the mirrored walls of the elevator, reflected back infinitely–Taylor unnaturally stiff, Ryan watching them in the mirror like he was trying to take them apart, and Jordan drunk and still ripped apart in between them. 

They get off. Taylor starts to reach into Jordan’s pocket for his room key, then stops. He used to just go for it. They both did. “Key?” he asks instead, and Jordan hands it over. He’s tired, now. He didn’t mean to drink this much. 

Then he’s being put to bed, and two pairs of strong hands are easing him down. “Drink some water,” Ryan says, tugging at his blankets. Then, 

“Night, Ebby,” Taylor says, and Jordan forces his eyes open. He’s not sure Taylor’s ever looked at him like that–like he was cracked open. His fingers brush over Jordan’s cheek. Then, like a whisper. “I’m sorry.” 

///

Jordan wakes up feeling like shit, but not shit enough that he doesn’t remember what happened last night. It would be hard not to, when he rolls over, and sees Taylor and Ryan both sacked out on the other bed. 

It’s-–like they’re on a roadie and they stayed up watching TV and they were too lazy to go home. They all got drunk in a hotel room because Ryan was too young to go to a bar. They’ve done it before. But Jordan doesn’t know why they did it now. 

He gets up. Goes to the bathroom; splashes his face with water. It feels better. 

When he come out, Ryan’s eyes are open. “What are you doing here?” Jordan asks, trying to be quiet. 

Ryan doesn’t blink. “I told you, I’m not going.” 

“Oh.” Jordan swallows. “Why’s he here?” 

Ryan shrugs. “He wouldn’t leave either.” 

“He’s awake,” Taylor mumbles, and rolls over so he can look at them. He’s still flushed with sleep and his lips look especially red and–fuck. Jordan kissed him, last night. Almost two decades, and now’s when he decides to kiss him. 

“I–” Jordan starts, leaning back so he can back away, and quick as anything Taylor’s hand lashes out to grab onto his forearm. 

“Don’t you dare,” he says, yawning. “Just. Let me wake up a second.” 

Jordan jerks his arm away. “I’ll do what I want.” 

“Jordan,” Ryan says. Asks. Jordan sighs, and sits down on his bed as Taylor pushes himself up to sitting. 

Then he just looks at Jordan, and Jordan looks back. He can outlast Taylor. So can Ryan. 

Sure enough, “I’m sorry, okay!” Taylor bursts out. “I was a dick.” 

“You are,” Jordan agrees. His head hurts too much for this. “Is that all?” 

“No.” Taylor’s head lifts, all courage and bravado. “You kissed me, Ebs.” 

Ryan jerks. “What?” 

“I was drunk.” 

“Okay.” Taylor doesn’t look away. “You still kissed me.” 

“Yeah, well.” Jordan shrugs. “There wasn’t a friendship to fuck up anymore, was there?” 

“Stop saying that!” Taylor surges to his knees on the bed. Jordan winces at the noise, the emphasis. “We’re still friends!” 

“Not when cameras aren’t on!” Jordan snaps back. “What, you’ll draft me for the All Star game but you can’t send a fucking text?” 

Taylor’s gone red. “Being traded–”

“Sucks. yeah, I know.” Jordan gestures to his bag, Islanders logo and all. “Didn’t stop you from talking to anyone else! From talking to Nuge! It was just me. So don’t fucking talk to me about being friends, because–” 

“You’re different!” Taylor cuts him off. “I’d never played in the NHL without you! You were–fuck, you were Edmonton and the NHL and home and I just–it was too much to talk to you, okay?” His breathing’s harsh in the quiet room. Jordan’s not much better. 

“You guys are super fucked up,” Ryan says, even. Tyler snorts. Jordan thinks he almost manages a smile. “I’m glad I was never  _this_  codependent with you.” 

Taylor’s hand brushes over Ryan’s side, but he doesn’t look away from Jordan. “I never thought–I thought we’d start again. We’re always us. I never thought about–”

You, Jordan fills in, because Taylor can be generous beyond belief and thoughtlessly selfish both. 

“Did you–” Jordan glances away. “Did you even miss me?” he asks, like it had been dragged out of him with Ryan. 

Taylor makes a sound like he’d been boarded. “So fucking much, man,” he says, all in a rush. “I–every day. I couldn’t even talk to Nuge about it, because I’d never stop. It was like–I don’t know, I didn’t have my skates or something.” 

“Skates or something,” Jordan mutters, incredulous. But–Taylor’s looking at him, open and earnest, and he’s never been able to lie to Jordan. 

And next to him, Ryan’s sitting up too. “Why are you still over there?” he asks, and holds out a hand. 

Jordan takes a deep breath, and lets him pull him in.

“Hey,” Taylor says, once Jordan’s tumbled onto the bed with them. It is definitely not made to fit three hockey players. Jordan doesn’t care. “You kissed me.” 

Jordan swallows. “I did.” If this breaks them–he’s had this one moment, of being back. That can carry him for years. 

But Taylor grins, big as winning a gold medal. “Good.” He looks beyond Jordan, to Ryan, a challenge and an expectation in his eyes. 

“Fucking finally,” Ryan adds, and then his hand’s on Jordan’s face, tipping him back to kiss him. Ryan’s mouth is warm and welcoming and Taylor’s hand is on his hips and his chest pressed to Jordan’s side, and Jordan lets them put him back together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on [ tumblr!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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